And now, here is something a bit off the beaten path. The Riveira (sic!) Hotel is the brown building with white trim in the background of this photograph, one of my favorite images. Approaching the hotel from the entrance side on Jones Street, I was searching for an engaging perspective when I heard a clangorous but muffled sound of drums and gongs being pounded in erratic syncopation, much like Chinese lion dance music. I was irresistibly drawn around the corner onto Ellis Street to the music’s source, an odd little building that had often piqued my curiosity.

A drab, one-story storefront had been transformed by a porte-cochere that imitated traditional Chinese architecture. From a distance the illusion was fairly convincing. Closer scrutiny revealed a sagging patchwork of the cheapest and strangest materials. Blue barrel tiles were contrived of aluminum soft drink cans covered by sheets of some indeterminate material, and the peeling, red-painted plywood was clearly interior grade. Above the entrance, golden Chinese pictographs affirmed a cultural animus, but the facade was otherwise inscrutable and any clues to the building’s function were concealed behind curtained windows. Adding to the mystery was the ritualistic music now emanating from within. Compelled to photograph the peculiar structure, I thereby found the way to frame the Riviera. A short time after I captured this image, the little building was leveled by a bulldozer. The lot has remained empty ever since.

Like this:

As anyone who has ever watched Antiques Roadshow can attest, the surest way to utterly destroy an antique’s value is to “restore” it, to make it look like new. Sadly, this is exactly what Randy Shaw has done with several of the Tenderloin’s lovely old, faded building ads, defacing their intrinsic beauty and nullifying their historicity. Nice work, Mr. Shaw. There is a big difference between old building ads and contemporary murals, a difference you clearly don’t comprehend. If you don’t want to take my word for it, I strongly suggest you consult knowledgable art historians before running off half-cocked and ruining any more neighborhood treasures.

Funded by a thirty-five thousand dollar Community Challenge grant overseen by Shaw’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which manages the City’s master lease SROs — arguably some of the worst-run residential hotels in San Francisco — the supposed restoration was carried out by Mission District muralists Precita Eyes. Adept at Byzantine maneuvering of both neighborhood and City Hall politics to serve his own ends, Shaw wants to attract affluent tourists to the neighborhood and is currently planning a Tenderloin history museum.

“Intersect” (2006)

The building ads seen here have thus far been untouched. Let us hope they remain so.

Interspersed among the Tenderloin’s densely-packed residential buildings are various commercial buildings designed to serve residents’ needs, mainly stores and auto repair and parking garages. There are also churches, union halls, a YMCA, a theater, and film exchange buildings.

Source: California State Library

Lower Turk, 1920. Note the glass-paned marquee over the entrance to the Camelot Hotel.

In 1948 the Port Hole moved to the first block of Mason Street, where it continued to operate into the 1950s. During the years that Treasure Island was an active US Navy base, the Tenderloin bars favored by on-leave sailors were the Port Hole, the Blue and Gold at 136 Turk, and the Coral Sea at 220 Turk.

The former El Crest Apartments are now owned and operated by the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation. The storefront at 161 Turk Street (renumbered 165) was formerly the Record Exchange, home of Bill Melander’s world-famous record collection.